Instagram on Profiles

November 17, 2011 10:02 AM

Pony request: add Instagram as a social app on profiles.

I know there are a number of users here who are also on Instagram, so it would be really cool to be able to see feeds as widgets on MeFi profiles, and also more easily find people to follow on Instagram.

posted by OverlappingElvis to Feature Requests at 10:02 AM (13 comments total)

Does it hit the requirements on this page? If so, please feel free to add it there. pb does a pass through there pretty frequently to add things.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:04 AM on November 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is there a public profile page for Instagram users? I thought the whole app existed in the iOS app.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:07 AM on November 17, 2011

That's kind of odd. My (probably limited) understanding was that Instagram isn't really a social network at all – it's an app that lets you share iPhone photos with Facebook, Twitter, etc. Are you saying you want an in-app option to share with your Mefi profile, too? I don't really see how that would be something pb can do. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how Instagram works.
posted by koeselitz at 10:09 AM on November 17, 2011

Here is Wikipedia's rundown of Instagram, for what it's worth. It still doesn't sound to me like Instagram has an actual presence on the web at all.
posted by koeselitz at 10:11 AM on November 17, 2011

As a workaround, though, doesn't Instagram share with a few services that we do already embed in profiles? If you have Instagram sharing with Twitter, for instance, it shouldn't be that hard to set up your Mefi profile to have your Twitter feed or whatever. (We have that option, right?)
posted by koeselitz at 10:16 AM on November 17, 2011

Instagram totally fails to meet "The service and linked page must be human-readable (no RSS) and available to the public without a login." There's absolutely zero public "profile" pages if you're not logged in. You can see particular pictures that are shared via Twitter, whatever, but they're dead-ends that only let you see that picture. You can't even create an account on the web: you have to use their App to create an account.
posted by skynxnex at 10:21 AM on November 17, 2011

Maybe somebody could create a Metafilter account on Instagram, and people could follow that account, and vice-versa.

Or maybe a service like If This Then That could help. If somebody posts a photo tagged #mefi, then... Profit?
posted by emelenjr at 11:28 AM on November 17, 2011

You can see particular pictures that are shared via Twitter, whatever, but they're dead-ends that only let you see that picture.

Totally drives me crazy! What is the rationale behind that?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:00 PM on November 17, 2011

There are sites like Instagrid that let Instagram users create a public profile page. I know I ran across another site that let you just punch in a user name with needing that user to set anything up, but I can't seem to find it now.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2011

Ah. Webstagram seems to do the trick: http://web.stagram.com/n/overlappingelvis/ is the OP's gallery.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:21 PM on November 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Instaview is another one like instagrid. I think there are a lot of them, most use your instagram login.
posted by donnagirl at 1:08 PM on November 17, 2011

Speaking of.... PoliticalFilter can probably be eliminated since that domain has lapsed and the site not longer exists.
posted by yeti at 1:30 PM on November 17, 2011

Yeah, there is an API to access Instagram stuff (http://instagram.com/developer/) but there isn't really a front-facing site for profiles.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 4:21 PM on November 17, 2011